Whoa. If you want to see a brilliant illustration of Strauss and Howe’s description of how the generations will line up in the upcoming -- or already-here -- crisis, check out the new movie Lions for Lambs (which I’ve reviewed here). Briefly:
• Boomer “Gray Champion” Robert Redford, as a college professor, inspires his Millennial students to sacrifice, to do right and to do good.
• Xer “general” Tom Cruise, as a right-wing U.S. senator, develops a pragmatic, practical plan for winning the “war on terror.”
• Millennial soldiers in Afghanistan carry out the plan.
You don’t need to agree with every idea espoused in the film -- Cruise’s senator is pretty scary, actually -- to see how neatly the roles of the characters fall along generational lines. I’m sure this was unintentional -- the whole point of Strauss and Howe’s theory is that the differing generational personalities lend themselves to particular roles, and there’s nothing that feels at all unnatural about how that plays out in the film.
(Technorati tags: Lions for Lambs, generational theory, Strauss and Howe)
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